Follow your
own master plan
Successful institutions make every financial decision based on a unique and specific master plan. They focus on what they can control and prepare for developments that may impact their financial security. They continually recheck their assumptions and make incremental changes as needed.
Your master plan is the product of an honest conversation about where you are today and where you are going. It's a living document that lays out assumptions about your future and helps you focus on the factors that you can control today. Equally important, your Plan assumptions are continuously reassessed over time.
Your decision support tool
Your master plan demonstrates the impact and consequences of every decision and helps you make the appropriate trade-offs based on what you value most. It helps you prepare for and adjust to foreseen and unforeseen events in your life and in the financial markets.
1. Identifying your financial life goals
Your advisor will employ a consistent, thorough and ongoing approach to identify and clarify your goals and aspirations. These should be your goals, not ours. By working interactively, as opposed to making "cookie cutter" recommendations, we begin to lay the foundation of your Plan, one that establishes your goals, based on what you value.
2. Understanding the five financial control factors
There are only five aspects of your financial life that you can truly control, and from these are developed the Plan assumptions. Your advisor will explain the five factors and how they interact in creating your Plan. You'll consider and decide upon any tradeoffs that may be required to pursue your aspirational lifestyle and long-term goals.
3. Measuring the probability of success
To measure the likelihood of your Plan's success, your advisor will use advanced scenario analysis software that considers thousands of simulations of "financial lifetimes" with inputs of actual and hypothetical historical market performance. These scenarios even include optimistic and pessimistic scenarios that have never occurred in the markets' history. This demonstrates your Plan's ability to withstand the unexpected.
4. Making adjustments along the way
Your Plan is a living document that will be kept up-to-date to ensure its effectiveness over time. For most people, unexpected change is frequently a factor that influences financial decision making. Any change in the tax code, a sudden rise in inflation, an inheritance or unforeseen illness may prompt a review of your Plan and adjustment of your control factors.